First Few Afocal Moon Shots

[AstroGuy]

Hi All,

I'm also still new at this. Here are a few moon shots out of the many thousand I have taken over the last 12 months. I've selected a couple so you can see what you can do with the equipment outlined below.

Interesting one I took with a webcam of part of the full blue moon phenomena some months ago, I only managed to capture a part of it though due to technical dificulties. As you can see in the blue moon shot, using the delrin plastic webcam adapter really contaminated the CCD. I would not advise using one of these, instead aluminum ones are better, which I know use.

Equipment used
---------------
Celestron 4se Mak, Alt-Az goto
GSO 1.25" 5x Apochromatic Barlow
GSO 1.25" 32mm SV CPL eyepiece
Long Perng 8-21mm zoom eyepiece
Long Perng Afocal Camera Adapter
Sanyo 12 megapixel digital camera
Pair of 1.25" GSO polarizer filters (for neutral density adjustment)
mogg delrin 1.25" webcam adapter (for blue moon shot)


The images are raw and have not been enhanced or touched up in any way using software. I have planned to eventually stack the best of the the series. I will try and post a few more when I stack them. I have created a 48 megapixel mosaic which I archived somewhere and I'm trying to find it. I will also post it up when I do find it.


Thanks...

[AstroGuy]

It seems the images are to big to upload, I will resize and try again...
I resized the images and further compressed the jpg so image quality is not the original. Still a very good representation of the original though.


Regards...

[supernova1965]

Very nice well done

[renormalised]

Try and reduce the physical size of the piccies so they don't require having to scroll all about your screen to see them. Best to try and make them around 640x480 or 800x600 in size.

Also, your piccies seem to be a bit out of focus. Use your live view on your camera's screen to get the piccie in focus. I think your out of focus pics maybe due to you using a barlow...the seeing conditions are probably not good enough to get a high powered shot. Just use your EP's and try eyepiece projection instead. Try a 25mm EP instead of the 32, and for higher power, if you have one, try a 15mm. But still make sure you have good focus.

[AstroGuy]

Hi,

They were originally 4000x3000 pixels and I had hoped to keep the res there but...still, they look alrightish huh?


Regards...

[renormalised]

The problem is they're too big to view onscreen. You have to scroll up and down quite considerably to view them.

[AstroGuy]

I am using eyepiece projection. I know a 25mm would be the optimum eyepiece match for my scope. I used the 32mm so I could encompass all of the moon available at the time (I also have limited eyepiece selection). Too many achromatic lenses in the light path, no live view or fancy doodads I'm afraid. Just an el cheapo sanyo fixed lens digital camera ,with manual shutter, and real low res preview LCD.

The focus issue has worried me and I've tried everything to resolve it to no avail. I think the focus problem is attributed to more than one factor, vibration from wind etc...manual shutter activation doesn't help either. This is why I've taken 1000's of images in order to pic the best ones for stacking. I think it could also be my eyes. Sometimes I spend so many hours looking it strains my eyes, that and the fact that I look at computer screens all day....

If you notice there is also some chromatic Aberration (the blue tinge). Even though the Mak has good colour correction, and I used an APO barlow, the 32mm camera projection lens is still Achromatic. I'm currently looking for authentic Apo eyepieces or fringe killer filter to resolve this. Otherwise I could just use a yellow filter.

Although a yellow filter would be effective in eliminating chromatic aberration it would also mask the natural beautiful colours of the moon. If you import the image into photoshop etc... try and turn up the saturation, the images look interesting to say the least. I think I might do that and re-upload for all of you later.

Thanks for the comments.


Regards...

[renormalised]

I halved the size of the images for you....you'll see what I mean about size. They're still too big, so I'll halve them again....

[AstroGuy]

Yeah, I don't know what's happening with that. At first when I tried to view them in the thread, they just popped up in a window. Next time I tried to view they go to a different preview screen and go beyond the boundaries of the screen so you have to scroll. The way this site previews has also something to do with it. I will try and resolve this later.


ooops....I realise now what's going on. You were editing and I was checking out the wrong image sorry, it's not anything to do with the site's previewer.


Thanks.


Regards...

[AstroGuy]

Hey!

You trying to destroy my masterpieces? :P :)

[renormalised]

Here they are again...

See the difference in how they're presented. The last two I posted look a lot clearer and crisper than the originals or the second lot.

[AstroGuy]

Thanks Warren.


Regards...

[AstroGuy]

yeah, I dunno, I guess so. What you running on your monitor 800x600?



Regards...

[renormalised]

No, nearly double that....I have an iMac with a 20" screen.

[supernova1965]

I have to agree about the size I have 1920x1080 resolution on a 20" screen and I couldn't fit them on my screen

[AstroGuy]

Fair enough, point taken. I just though it would be cool for people to be able to scroll around the landscape a little. Kinda gives you the impression your inside a lunar module hovering around heh heh heh :)



Regards...

[AstroGuy]

No problemo, thanks for doing that mate. It would have been nice to have both options up there though.



Regards...

[ballaratdragons]

Totally understand.

Your intentions were good, but its all been done to death and it was recommended that people try refrain from posting huge images in here as most people got fed up having to scroll around to see the image, and most of the impact is lost purely because you can't see the image easily.

Larger versions can be posted elsewhere and linked to :)

Same as lifting the Saturation to show the colours on the Moon. It's nothing new, yet you speak as though you just invented it :lol:

But yes, the Moon in colour is a stunning effect.

Not picking, just having a laugh with you. :thumbsup:

[AstroGuy]

And probably for those that did not know it could be done, or had not thought about doing it, to those individuals, I probably seemed like I did invent it.

:D

Regards...

[AstroGuy]

It would be a nice feature to have a zoom in, zoom out function on the previewer page huh?



Regards...